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Category: From Morton Blackwell

A groundswell of conservative complaints and considerable new information has led Congressmen Darrell Issa and Jim Jordan to ask Treasury Department Inspector General J. Russell George to “conduct an investigation to determine whether groups that possess tax-exempt status were targeted for audits or examinations based on their political beliefs or ideology.”

Why do studies show that college seniors are more liberal than college freshmen? Simply put, campus radicals dominate almost every college campus in America and create a hostile environment for conservatives and libertarians.

Leftists claim to support diversity. But “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and political correctness run amok show that liberals in higher education reject diversity of thought and freedom of speech.

Conservatives rarely have an outlet for their beliefs. When students get news about their campus, the official student newspaper is often simply a tool for spreading leftist propaganda. Many university administrations blatantly censor conservative ideas and opinions.

However, many conservatives and libertarians now fight back and stand up for free speech with newspapers of their own.

Why do studies show that college seniors are more liberal than college freshmen? Simply put, campus radicals dominate almost every college campus in America and create a hostile environment for conservatives and libertarians.

Conservatives rarely have an outlet for their beliefs. When students get news about their campus, the official student newspaper is, more often than not, simply a tool for spreading leftist propaganda.

However, many conservatives and libertarians now fight back with newspapers of their own.

Papers such as the Harvard Salient, the Notre Dame Irish Rover, the University of Georgia Arch Conservative, and the California Patriot now shatter the leftist dominance of campus debate with hard-hitting editorials and unique reports of liberal abuses.

I suspect all will join me in commending Lauren's enthusiasm and dedication to the Institute. Naming her employee of the quarter today recognizes her work on CPAC, but also the dozens of good projects she has accomplished for LI -- often without credit or praise.

I had a very exciting time at the Republican National Convention. My conservative allies and I all worked very hard in the presidential election.

When I woke up the day after the election, everything I had worked for appeared to be in ruins. An extreme leftist had been reelected president of the United States.

Some liberal Republicans immediately began to blame newly activated conservatives for the presidential defeat. I knew they were wrong. It was clear to me that these newly active conservatives would be the key to major future victories for conservative principles.

Thank you for your support as I accepted the 2012 James C. Dobson Vision and Leadership Award. Your attendance at the Family Research Council’s Faith, Family and Freedom Gala was a tangible display of your commitment to defend traditional values against those leftists who seek to fundamentally transform (i.e., ruin) our country.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, left-wing efforts to undermine traditional values prompted social conservatives to get involved in politics. Like many of you, I took action. The subsequent formation of ad hoc coalitions grew into today’s conservative movement.

Despite numerous conservative victories since then, the assault on family values and religious faith continues. Click to read more about just a few chilling examples of leftist bias and abuse my staff exposed this year through the Leadership Institute’s campus website, www.CampusReform.org:

Morton Blackwell delivered this speech at the Faith, Family, and Freedom Dinner of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, September 15, 2012.

Thank you for the great and undeserved honor you pay me tonight. Previously you have given this annual award to people who deserve recognition far more than I do.

The honor is increased for me because I have such a deep admiration for the great achievements of the Family Research Council and your president, Tony Perkins.

Tony and I are both from Baton Rouge. We both are conservative movement activists. Tony and I both now find ourselves leading conservative non-profit organizations officed in the D.C. area. And both of us understand that we depend on generous donors for everything we accomplish.

Unlike me, however, Tony is famous. And he deserves his fame. His frequent and eloquent appearances in national print, broadcast, and online media directly reach millions of people, encouraging them and guiding them to take principled actions on public policy questions.

In my line of work, I seek out people who are reasonably conservative, persuade them that they owe it to their philosophy to study how to win, and then help them learn how to succeed in government, politics, and the news media.

Generous donors have also enabled my Leadership Institute to build a national network of more than 1,350 active, independent, local conservative student groups to fight leftist abuses and bias on college campuses in every state.

My Leadership Institute staff deserve more praise than they get for their remarkable skills and dedicated work for conservative principles.

I aim to build a movement, not an empire. Increasing the number and effectiveness of conservative activists and leaders by teaching them how to win is not inherently newsworthy, and news coverage of political training programs sometimes is less than helpful.

Primarily for that reason, a complete file of the news releases I have generated regarding my work would fit into a slim folder.

When conservative graduates of my training win elections, I counsel them that the way to continue successfully in politics is to keep their principles, keep their word, keep their pants on, and keep their fingers out of other people's wallets.

Tonight I intend to speak briefly about three matters:

1. The rise of social issue conservatives in politics

2. The creation of a powerful conservative movement from ad hoc coalitions

It has often and probably correctly been said that there are today more convinced Marxists on American college faculties than there are in the former Soviet empire.

Any conservative college student you know who is now enrolled at any but the tiny handful of explicitly conservative colleges could curl your hair with stories of leftist bias and abuses on his or her own campus.

And the professors, the college officials, and the national leftist groups which pour resources into student organizations know very well what they're doing: undermining the political, cultural, and moral foundations of America under the cover of "academic freedom."

The left does not take kindly to any expression of conservative principles on their campus strongholds.

Over the years, the left has wiped out and excluded from many colleges and universities anything supportive of limited government, free enterprise, strong national defense, or traditional values.

But our Campus Leadership Program (CLP) is over the moat and cracking their walls.

Today the Leadership Institute works with 1,379 conservative student groups and publications on 658 campuses in all 50 states.

In August, I will send 25 field representatives to college campuses across the country to identify and recruit conservative students and help them organize independent conservative groups and publications.

Perhaps you -- or a bright, young conservative you know -- will be one of them.

National recovery depends on rolling back previous leftist victories. That means giving no more gains to the left through compromises, cutting government outlays on “entitlements” and “discretionary” spending, and cutting back both regulations and the legal authority for bureaucrats to impose more regulations. That’s the only way to save the economy, promote growth, and create more jobs.

The pendulum of public policy must be swung back. If that is not achieved, our country is headed straight for something much worse than the similarly-caused financial crisis today in European countries. It would be worse because, unlike for Europe now, there is no source on Earth capable of bailing out a bankrupt United States.

Rolling back big government is the greatest political problem in the United States since 1860.

Every expenditure of government funds has a constituency to support it fiercely. And the anti-reform constituency includes more than the direct recipients of government checks.

Lobbyists are a major part of the problem. Most of them make most of their money by seeking financial advantages from government for their clients. They will use their contacts and skills to prevent any reduction in government power to make decisions to favor special interests.

Similarly, trial lawyers are always and everywhere the most active foes of tort reform, even though tort reform certainly increases general prosperity.

Lobbyists and trial lawyers will fight conservatives in the political process, but the ideological left doesn’t limit itself to peaceful, civilized activity.

Let us suppose that the conservatives newly activated in politics succeed in electing a determined conservative President and a Congress with determined conservative majorities in both Houses. What would the left do?

The American left is still shaken by the success of spontaneous conservative grassroots participation in tea party activities leading up to the 2010 elections. In desperation, leftists now hope to profit from the Occupy Wall Street gatherings which have spread to many other locations.

Haven’t the mainstream print and broadcast media, overwhelmingly liberal, given massive and sympathetic coverage to the Occupiers? Isn’t this a good way to build enthusiasm among the base the left needs to win the 2012 elections?

Probably not, even though Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, many extremist labor unions, the Socialist Party USA, the Communist Party USA, and others on the left are singing praises of the current demonstrators. So many want to lead the Occupiers.

One week after the Occupy Wall Street protesters first gathered, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by Michael Kazin, “Whatever Happened to the American Left?,” offering his guidance in left-wing movement building. He urged the demonstrators to focus on “demanding millions of new jobs that pay a livable wage.”